Two Visits
by Edes
Summary: Sydney and Julia visit the grave of a friend to say goodbye.


Title: Two Visits

Timeframe: Early Season Three, before Nemesis

Author: Edes

Disclaimer: These characters don't belong to me

Note: I was yearning for closure on the Francie storyline: did Syd ever mourn her?  Did Julia?   I also wanted to explore the differences between Syd-as-Syd and Syd-as-Julia a little. This text also references a deleted scene between Syd and Francie from the Season 2 DVD. I hope you like it.  Feedback is welcome.

**_Two Visits_**

[_Sydney_]

The LA air was cleaner than usual after the week of January rain.  Sydney drove with the window down.  Her lungs felt clear, even after the hour-long run this morning.  That's the catch about LA, of course: weather warm enough to run outside even in January, air dirty enough to make your eyes and throat burn as if it _were _the dead of winter.

She pulled into a parking lot.  Surprisingly small, she thought, but then, this was a place in the middle of the city.  Even LA had its denser areas.  She got out of the anonymous-looking car, shutting the door with a subdued thud.  A standard issue Ford on the outside—in a dull tan no less—the  car drove more like that of a jacked-up police trooper's.  Helpful in Syd's line of work these days. These days? Every day.  Even on days off, like this one, Syd's cell hung heavy in her pocket and beat against her leg like a small stone.  She passed by a wrought iron fence—it was not without taste, she noticed—and entered the cemetery.

Sydney's mind flitted over small observations as her firm stride carried her over the grass through the field spattered with gravestones.  The stones reached into the air like teeth in green gums.  Sharks have rows and rows of teeth like that, Syd thought. She walked on, her feet walking purposefully, belying her growing agitation.

Sydney reluctantly cleared her mind as she neared the headstone, dismissing her thoughts as the attempt at self-distraction that they were.  Pointless inanities, to help her get to where she was going in one piece.  She was here.

Syd looked up at the blue sky, but didn't think again of its strange clarity.  She gave a little sigh, barely audible, and then looked down at the grave of her best friend.  It was, actually, the second time.

[_Julia_]

Syd didn't remember the first time she mourned Francie properly.  As if there was ever anything _proper_ about visiting the body of a best friend that had been dead for almost a year before you even noticed.  The stride that took her across the green lawn that first time was not Syd's.  Nor was the blond, wavy hair that struck her shoulders as she walked, hair that seemed strapped to her face by the band of thick sunglasses that hid her eyes completely.  Julia Thorne liked sunglasses like that.  In an almost ironic gesture, she always bought a pair whenever she saw them.  She might have realized she was refreshing her new identity with an accessory that conveyed detachment—if she ever thought about it. The top drawer in whatever hotel Julia was staying in at the time always held an extra pair or two that she couldn't fit in her small suitcase when she moved on.  A curious habit that each of the ten or so of her current aliases shared.

But Julia didn't think about her strange signature.  In fact, she rarely thought at all—she computed, analyzed, acted.  Her actions since her release (bought with blood, of course) were graceful but automatic, like those of a well-trained circus cat.  That was what they'd been going for, though, right?  Some days, she almost was what the Covenant—with their torture, with their brainwashing—had tried to make her.  Those days were the easiest; she welcomed them.

Today was not one of those days.  This last assignment had caught Julia off-guard from the beginning—they had ordered her to go to LA.  She'd been furious, despite the layers of calluses in her mind that buffered her emotions these days.  She hadn't been back to LA since she'd seen Vaughn with his (now) wife, the moment when she had finally shuddered into her new selfin a shocking act of sacrifice.  Even hard, calm Julia didn't want anything to do with that feeling again.

So she had been angry—and for an instant she almost felt like someone else she remembered, someone indignant, self-righteous.  But the moment passed, and she heard Julia calmly accepting the orders, coolly pursuing the details of the assignment.

It didn't matter what that assignment had been, not today.  She had completed it on schedule, with no fuck ups, leaving her a few short hours in LA before the plane took her back to the next meeting with her Covenant handler.  She could have called the CIA, she supposed, see if they needed anything while she was in the area, but unscheduled contact was risky.  Besides, she'd met with Kendall a few days ago.  He was up to date enough, even though she hadn't told him about this latest mission.  Julia perversely kept some of them totally secret, an act of defiance that she didn't completely understand.  Not that she tried to, much.

The air in LA was unusually humid as Julia pulled into the small parking lot of the cemetery.  Water particles thickened the soup of smog, a white July haze that settled in the rivets of the area's many valleys. Julia got out of her car, a flashy, custom Beemer that pleased some corner of her mind.  Another trapping of the character she played. The character she was.

[_Sydney_]

Syd's short gray flats made little imprint on the grass before the grave.  She blinked rapidly at the tears that seemed to come so easily now.  They spilled over anyway, as she knew they would.

"Oh, Francie," Syd whispered, snuffling and crunching up her face in an expression that might have been funny on another person. "I'm so sorry.  How could I have failed you like that?   You and Will, both.  I never deserved your love."

A pause as Syd kneeled down, her too-big jeans hitching up around her delicate ankles.  She was too skinny, she knew—once customary roundhouses and punch combos tired her more than she cared to admit, these days.  On some missions she knew she survived on adrenaline alone.  She needed to preserve her strength to preserve herself, but eating, like everything else, had become a chore she performed listlessly.

"I killed her, though." Syd continued after a while, her voice stronger.  "Alison Doren.  The woman who was you.  I shot her in our apartment after Will told me the truth.  I just wanted to tell you that.  And to tell you how much I miss you."

Another break in the voice, another pause.

"You know, I can't even tell you that what you said to me that last time wasn't true—that I never would have left you an as old woman with blue hair on the park bench alone. I'd like to think that we would have been sitting together.  But I know now that promise would be a lie.  Turns out I don't seem to have much control over my life, after all.  Strange, huh?"

A wry smile, followed by brows lifted into a small triangle of pain. Syd knelt down, fingers light on the imprinted name in front of her.

"I love you, Francie.  Goodbye, baby."

[_Julia_]

Julia's pointed heels punctured the grass before the grave.  Every step toward it was a small act of violence; little circular wounds in the grass marked her tail, smelling incongruously like earthy summer, like life.

She looked down on at the smooth gray headstone without expression.  She felt the tides of emotion sucking at her mind, pulling her into a place of pain.  Of vulnerability. She shook her head slightly, a gesture that made her next words possible.

"I was a fool, for many reasons.  To think that I could love people, that it would turn out OK, knowing I was who I was.  I was selfish, stupid to cling to you like I did.  It made me an easy target, so many times.  Didn't turn out too well for you, either, did it?"

A harsh, short laugh, heard by no one.

"Well, I'm sorry I did what I did, loved who I loved.  That's what I came here to apologize for, to tell you."

A pause, speculative more than bitter.

"You know that I didn't even kill her?  Allison Doren. That bitch is still running around, I've heard.  We even work for the same people, now.  Strange, huh?"

A wry smile, followed by brows lifted into a small triangle of pain. Julia didn't recognize it, but it was her first real expression in months. Julia knelt down but did not touch the stone.

"I did love you, though, France.  Goodbye."

Julia straightened slowly, walked away.  Automatically, she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and wiped her face clean.  She headed back to her car with the smooth gait of someone with nothing in particular on her mind.  Someone brave, and empty.


End file.
